Closure - for your Peace of Mind
by Sleeveen
Summary: I was taking Rung prompts on plurk/tumblr and this is one of them: Dark!Rung. Note please that this isn't Shattered Glass verse. This is AU only insofar as Rung has a bit of a darker motive behind what he's doing. Everyone else is standard MTMTE. Look out though, this might turn into a horror, and possible triggers include whatever you might expect from a dark!psychologist.
1. One by

"_A dark and troubling Omen. Sparkeaters are drawn to pain and emotional trauma [...] Horrific things must have happened on this ship. We're being punished._" - Drift, The Lost Light.

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Fortress Maximus woke with Ratchet's face scowling down at him, lit from behind by the bright white of a medibay light. There was a jarring sense of displacement, and for a moment Maximus was lost, unsure how he'd ended up here. When Ratchet turned away from him to say something to Ambulon, the world lurched back into place, his last memory replaying itself like a slap in the face.

_**Rung**__._

_Had he-?  
Was Rung-?_

Maximus made a move to climb off the slab, looking around frantically; if Rung was alright – or at least if he was still online, please_, please _let him still be_ functioning_ – the psychiatrist would have been in the medibay, too. But Maximus's panicked effort was interrupted by the bars clamped down over his wrists, forearms, thighs, and calves.

_Of course, _one small part of his brain reminded him; _he was dangerous._ But the rest of his mind was too easy to lose, and it was easier still to be rocked back to G9 and similar circumstances. Maximus couldn't stop his ventilations from picking up as a Ratchet-shaped shadow of Overlord loomed over him. Even when that figure spun around to investigate a monitor as it came to life, sounding a string of loud warning beeps, all Maximus could parse was the sudden movement. It was erratic and that never, _ever_ boded well. It meant _someone_ was in a mood, and _that_ meant there was no way to prepare for what might come next. What _would _come next_._ Whether it was impossible demands disguised as necessary questions, or violence poorly disguised as interrogation, at least it helped when there was some way to anticipate the … _paces_ he'd be put through.

Reality and spiraling memory superimposed over each other badly, leaving jagged gaps of terrifying incompatibility that rendered Fortress Maximus mute, eyes stopped on their widest aperture as he tried to find the seams between what was, and wasn't there. His processor stalling on garbage data and nonsense feedback, Maximus hypervented, running his fans but dispelling no heat.

From the edge of his peripheral vision, he saw the lanky shape of Whirl skulk out from behind a wall, closely followed by First Aid. Any familiarity that the nurse might have prompted was offset quite neatly by Whirl's dirty look, somehow reading loud and clear even with his entire lack of a face.

Maximus rotated his wrists, hands fisting as he checked for any give in the bars holding him down. Both the squeal of metal and whatever Ratchet might have said went unheard.

"Did you want to see him?" First Aid asked, looking up at Whirl but trailing off as another abrasive symphony of alerts started up. He cast a nervous glance in Max's direction and the warden was almost too tense to notice. _Almost._

If you didn't keep track of where everyone was, it left you vulnerable to … surprises_;_ and Maximus had discovered early enough that he really had no love for those.

Tensing further, he stared back at Whirl, anticipating a fight while his body remembered other things. If Whirl thought they weren't even… If he tried anything…

"First Aid, _get over here_," Ratchet demanded, preparing something just out of Maximus's view as the nurse scurried over, leaving Whirl alone and unattended where he'd stopped.

"Seen enough," Whirl said to no one, to anyone, or maybe just to Maximus as a line was magnetized to the warden's neck. Even as Maximus strained against the staticky claws of darkness groping up from the edges of his optics, the world started to fuzz back out and he was powerless to keep his grip.

.

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* * *

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.

The rest was a jumbled blur; Ultra Magnus showing up at some point to drag him, cuffed, maglocked, and drugged to the brig. Maximus remembered gibbering a question, drunkenly asking after Rung as he was forced down the hall over his own stumbling feet. His only reply was a glower and a gruff, "That isn't your concern."

Maximus had expected more of a reprimand, more of anything really, but Magnus had only stared hard at him and then slammed up the energy barrier of the cell before storming out.

For a long time after that they'd left him alone. And in a way, it suited him.

He ... he needed to think. He hated to, but he didn't think he could face anyone, not after what had happened. _Everything_ that had happened. But left alone with only the buzz of the energy wall and his thoughts, he found himself trapped in recollection, a loop of his last moments before onlining in the medibay.

He'd been holding Rung – if you could call it that. Really, Rung had been holding _him,_ whispering something Maximus couldn't remember past a glass sliver of comfort. Then Rung had jerked, his entire frame shaking with the force of the blast. Maximus remembered how it had felt, the vibration of the tiny body, the heat of the explosion against his plating, the wet squelch and the smell of burning circuitry inches away from his face … and then Rung going limp. That was it. That, the fire, and its smoke, was all Maximus could remember before his memory file picked up again and his world became Ratchet and the beginning of an old nightmare.

The shock of Rung's last moments were so new and startling that for the first time in his life something actually overshadowed Garrus-9. And alone, in that cell, Maximus lost himself to replaying the horror over, and over, and over again.

.

Things changed when they brought Red Alert in.


	2. One

Red Alert was a ranting, thrashing mess as he was dragged into the brig, manhandled there by Drift and fighting it all the way.

Maximus said nothing as he watched the scene. Besides dwelling on the visceral feeling of Rung all but dying in his arms, there wasn't much else for him to do but remember less pleasant times spent in better-built prisons. It was either that or watch _this_; the _Lost Light's _most recent drama unfolding.

The choice was an easy one to make.

Hot Rod followed behind Drift, and Maximus could tell by the way the captain's plating was clamped down that he was irritated. The kid's face though was anything but – in fact, Hot Rod's expression only translated a supposed boredom, as if he was more than used to dealing with the hysterical. Heavy footfalls behind him announced Ultra Magnus even before he'd come into view, bringing up the rear of this sorry little train.

Red Alert was babbling an incoherent stream of negations that became clearer as the procession drew closer. "He'll – He's coming for me – because of _him_. I'm next because I let this happen to him, because I didn't check, and now he's coming for us. _None of us are safe_."

"Listen, Red Alert," Hot Rod said, perfectly conversational and ignoring the way the security director was literally trying to dig his feet into the floor. "You've really got to calm down here. You're disrupting the crew. People are saying you're even worse than Whirl these days," and if Hot Rod thought he was being pacifying, he wasn't fooling anyone. "Whirl_, _Red Alert; _Whirl._"

Red Alert didn't let the insult deter his stilted torrent of apparent nonsense. He tried to turn himself around to better address the captain, but Drift changed his grip and the action was aborted. That didn't stop Red Alert either. "It isn't my fault," he insisted. "But I'm next. I know you've been watching me. You've all been watching, but you've got it wrong. _You all saw what happened to Rung!_" he all but cried out, and the sudden emotion was surprising. He and Rung must have been close. _"_I've _told_ you, I _need_ to see him. Immediately! It's urgent!"

"And _I've_ told _you _that you need to calm down," Hot Rod repeated peevishly. "You're not seeing _anyone_ when you're all wound up like this."

"There's monsters on this ship, Rodimus,. It's – they're going to destroy us. I've– I've_ seen him_. I saw him first. _I'm next_."

"Just give it a night, Red," Drift said, trying to be the voice of reason now, "We'll come and check on you in the morning. Just give yourself some time to cool your circuits."

"You don't _understand,_" Red Alert all but wailed, giving another futile jerk. "You don't know what you're dealing with and no one will listen. He's coming for me – for all of us. This is revenge for what we've done. Whatyou've_ all _done_!_"

Hot Rod put a hand to his face, massaging the shutters of his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "I really don't need to deal with this right now," he said wearily as Drift shot him another look, this time halfway apologetic before giving a tiny shrug.

Red Alert was inconsolable. "I need to see Rung," he insisted.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Hot Rod muttered under his breath, casting his eyes to the ceiling. Then, addressing his security director, said curtly, "I already told you how this is going to go. That's not changing."

"I need to see Rung," Red Alert insisted again, twisting like a turbofox with only one mangled paw caught in the snare. There was an acute desperation there, even when the efforts were obviously useless. "I need to check on him."

"Rung is _fine_," Rodimus snapped, not even bothering to keep the annoyance from his voice now. "You've seen him yourself. Nothing's changed."

Something settled in Fortress Maximus's spark, like the gears of an old toy falling back into place.

The emotion didn't last long. Trying a new tactic, Red Alert pointed to him and said with more venom in his voice than Max would have ever given such a bland frame credit for, " You want someone to blame, Rodimus? Try Fort Max, here. This is _his_ fault." Red Alert made a noise that sounded like a mix of a choke, a sob, and a distraught giggle all ground up between a pair of rusty cogs. "All of this is _his_ fault. None of this would have happened to any of us– none of this would have happened to_ Rung _if it wasn't for him."

The little gears in the toy began to crack, forced to move against each other in what turned out to be an ill fitting composition after all.

The director's torrent of vague accusations stalled as if something had suddenly occurred to him. Then, struggling with a new energy, he directed his next comment fully at Maximus. "This _is _your fault," he said with something like dawning understanding. "This is your fault because you couldn't handle yourself, and now you're just going to bring the rest of the ship with you!" His feet kicked at the ground where Drift restrained him. "You're next!" Red Alert suddenly hollered. "He's going to come after _you_ first!"

Drift turned to the captain with a tentative, "Uh, Rodiums...?" A very low whine had started in the room and Drift seemed to have picked up on it. While he didn't seem particularly alarmed, he still saw fit to point out the way Red Alert's shoulder mounted canon had started to hum and heat as the systems began coming online.

"Now let's not do do anything you're going to regret..." Hot Rod said, opening his hands and splaying his fingers. Maybe this was the kid's version of a 'placating' voice but it came off a lot closer to 'impatient.'

Red Alert ignored him, and did a valiant effort of ignoring Drift too. It was obvious everyone's tempers were running shorter by now. Red Alert was near screaming, his entire body straining as he repeated for what must've been the third time at least, "_I need to see Rung._ You don't understand, there's monsters on board. You have to listen to me, there are monsters in here._ They're on the ship."_

Exasperated, Hot Rod threw his hands up and rolled his eyes, "And there he goes again." Then snapping, said, "The Sparkeater's been dealt with. I should know, and Drift's already debriefed you. Now power down your weapons and hand them over. As your commanding officer, I'm ordering you."

"I'm not going to let you leave me here without a way to defend myself," Red Alert shot back.

"Nothing's getting in here; this is the _brig._ And for that matter, _you're_ not going anywhere either."

"An energy barrier isn't going to stop what's coming," Red Alert said firmly, an odd hollowness in his words. "Prisons won't protect us,"

Maximus ignored the way his lines seemed to be steadily gathering frost.

It was then that Ultra Magnus finally broke his holier-than-thou silence, cutting in with a stony "Your hysteria will not be tolerated and your security overrides have been suspended. Don't make this more difficult. Your armatures _will _be removed, and should you be deemed a hazard to this crew–"

"Ow," Drift interrupted, as the still-struggling Red Alert landed an elbow into his chin.

"– Or yourself," Ultra Magnus said almost as an afterthought. Then continuing unperturbed, added,"You will remain here until you've been flagged as safe, _however _long that will take."

"...I see what you're trying to do," Red Alert said. "Lock me up and forget about me. Because– because I've found out what's going on here. This – all of this. The ship; it's cursed. Said so yourself, _Drift_." The last word rang as an accusation and Drift looked almost sheepish for a second before his handsome features smoothed back out.

Red Alert still hadn't finished talking. "You're all in on it, aren't you? Don't think I haven't heard you talk. You've always suspected – thought I'd figure it out – that's why you've been watching me. Worried I was listening in."

"You've been _spying on me_?" Hot Rod demanded, face pinching.

But Red Alert ignored him, steamrolling right on ahead, "Were worried I'd figure it out all out. And now I have, and you can't have that. Can't have it getting out. I _knew–_"

"That's enough," Ultra Magnus thundered, cutting Red Alert off mid-sententce. A huge hand came down on the director's shoulder, white fist beginning to tighten around the mounted canon.

"W–" Red Alert stuttered. "Are you – You're going to rip it off!"

Magnus's fight tightened by the pascal but he said nothing; neither did Red Alert for a while, though he did fidget uncomfortably, his knees bending a bit as the sound of buckling metal filled the tiny room.

"Don't," he finally said, voice strained.

Magnus didn't relent. "Detach your locks."

There was another tense moment of silence, Red Alert's slowly crumpling posture bringing him closer to the ground. For a minute, Maximus though he might not actually give up the missile, but eventually the locks clicked open and the weapon was pulled up and away. Unceremoniously it was handed off to Hot Rod who didn't look pleased to have it. But at least Red Alert had calmed down.

A light blinked on at Hot Rod's hip and turning to take a sudden and apparently pressing call, the captain strode across the room to stand in a corner. Maximus had his doubts; it was more likely the kid just wanted a reprieve – however temporary – from his glitched director of security. In the near silence of Hot Rod whispering into a receiver, Red Alert remained silent, a strange look of focus on his face, as if he was listening to something they all couldn't hear.

As for Drift and Ultra Magnus, they both didn't seemed to have much to say, each officer carefully ignoring the other.

There was another noise eventually, beginning quietly but soon growing loud enough to make out. Apparently Red Alert didn't like what the little voices must've been telling him because he'd been quietly repeating a string of, "No. No, no, no, no, no, no," each slightly louder and more panicked than the last.

Hot Rod spun around, looking at no one as his voice rose, obviously agitated with his call. All Max caught were pieces of, "What do you... Lost?... then... No, obviously..." The call ended with a snapped, "Well, find it! That's your job."

The entire time, Red Alert's mantra just wore on. Free again, Hot Rod gave the director a look, and Red Alert seemed to sober, at least enough to point back to Maximus. Wrestling an arm free, he gestured savagely.

"Don't leave me here with him. We're – He's – I'll be a bigger target. You can't lock me in here; not with him. Not alone. Nothim." And then in a different tone of voice, added almost cruelly, "Not after what he _did_."

It was as if everyone in the room suddenly remembered that Maximus was there, all faces _really _turning back to him this time. Drift honestly looked somewhat surprised; and maybe they _had_ forgotten him for a while down here. Maybe Red Alert had been right. As for everyone else; Red Alert looked torn between terror and fury, Ultra Magnus wore the unchanging scowl he must've been forged with, and Rodimus just looked petulant.

From behind the still active energy field, Maximus stared back at them. The silence didn't have time to get awkward because Red Alert was speaking up again, and Maximus was surprised to find it sounded even more frightened than it had before. "Don't leave me in here. Not with him. You can't leave me here. This is bad, and you can't leave me in here with him."

Ultra Magnus's frown deepened as he scowled at Maximus, and the warden could only guess it was because he was getting in the way of whatever Magnus defined as 'proper punishment' and his precious 'duly processed justice'.

"Get him out of here," Magnus eventually growled over the sound of Drift's second "Ow." And Maximus really had to hand it to the security director; he was clearly outclassed and more than obviously missing a few bolts where it counted, but the little guy sure didn't give up.

Max only knew of Drift from his preposterous position, the rumours, and the guy's reputation – and if he thought about it, those last two probably amounted to the same thing. Either way he was sure a mech built like that, broad shoulders and powerful legs, could have floored the underclocked head of security easily. If this joke of their commanding trio wanted Red Alert pacified, they should've let him know they were serious. The director might've been a glitchcase, but his plating still looked tough enough. He could have undoubtedly taken at least a couple blows – at the very least it would have calmed him down. If not _put him down_ for the remainder of his little brig visit. That would've solved everyone's problems.

Idly Maximus wondered if that was the real reason this Red Alert was frightened of him.

Hot Rod was arguing with Magnus now, barking a, "Watch it. We've talked about this. _You_ don't give the orders here."

Both commanding officers turned back to him, and Maximus could only stare back dumbly. What did they expect him to say? Did they think he had an opinion on their malfunction of a security head? Or maybe they were waiting for him to say something about this tiny, sorry little makeshift brig they called their 'prison'? No, this was their own issue, and he had nothing to share. The problem was obvious; there was only one cell. So either they were going to throw the little glitchbucket in with him, or they weren't. Honestly, Maximus couldn't bring himself to care either way.

Perhaps feeling some shadow of guilt, Hot Rod didn't gloat. Instead he gave Maximus a cold once over, then not even deigning to speak to him, said to Magnus somewhat sullenly, "Yeah. Get him out of here."

Ultra Magnus huffed, but moved to comply with no further complaint. The energy field was brought down and Maximus didn't struggle, letting himself be cuffed again. As he came out of the cell, he couldn't help but step past Red Alert. The security director gave a sudden full body twist to avoid Max's bulk, and then to everyone's surprise, hissed with complete acid, "This is your fault, and this is on _your_ head."

Expression hard, Maximus simply looked down at the comparatively tiny build and said nothing. Red Alert had the grace, or perhaps the survival instincts to deflate a little as his shoulders hunched, but the expression he returned was one that was more hatred than it was fear.

If Red Alert's next comment hadn't had Maximus seeing red, he would have been ruefully impressed. As it was though, the mech just didn't know when to keep his mouth shut.

"If you'd just dealt with Overlord–" Red Alert was hissing, but whatever else he said was lost to the sound of Maximus's engine picking up as he stopped dead in his tracks.

Even in the cuffs, it wouldn't take much effort to pummel that stupid, loose screw of a _stupid,_ tin of rust.

"Got a death wish?" Maximus growled, stepping not past Red Alert now, but toward him.

Three things happened next, all at once. Drift, hands still restraining their _suicidal_ director, nonetheless shifted his stance, lowering his centre of gravity. The move was discreet, and he must have thought Max hadn't noticed, but he _had. _He'd spent 3 years learning through violent conditioning to read body language and there was no way to misinterpret that movement, subtle as it might have been. Drift was preparing for a fight – and more importantly, they outnumbered him.

At the same time his battle computer flashed through the path of least resistance when facing the odds of four against one, Maximus's attention divided. Eyes a steady, beady, pale blue, Red Alert answered in a voice completely devoid of inflection – the voice of someone who was sure of their future, "Doesn't matter anymore."

There wasn't time to fully appreciate the deadness in those words, because even as they were being spoken, Ultra Magnus was slapping an inhibitor-claw into place, bolts so tight they cut into the alloys of his vertebrae, effectively shoving a wedge of white noise into his processor and forcing lag into both his thoughts and motor relays. It was all he could do not to stumble.

"Eyes ahead and just keep walking," Magnus commanded with a huge hand heavy against his back. "And you–" Magnus started, turning his head to either Hot Rod or their mad little director of security. But whatever he'd been ready say never manifested. There was a terse silence before Magnus said instead, "I'll be back."

Thankfully Red Alert had the sense to stay quiet this time. Or maybe, with the way his expression had gone distant and resigned, he'd simply stopped caring. But the director no longer mattered, and once again, Maximus was prodded forward into a future he wasn't sure he was ready for.


	3. They

Ultra Magnus didn't have a lot to say as he escorted a cuffed Maximus down yet another hallway. _Again_. But that suited Max just fine; he didn't feel much like talking either. In fact, he _never_ wanted to talk, but did anyone here accept that? **No**. He'd _said _he didn't want to talk about it, but first Ratchet and that nurse, and then that orange pipsqueak Rung had insisted. They'd just kept pushing and _pushing_, never taking 'No' for an answer. Now look at where that left _all _of them.

Still, it didn't stop oily guilt from warming the bottom of his fuel tank.

Magnus brought them to a halt in front of a hab suite door and fixed him with a bland glare. "Turn around."

Maximus didn't like having people at his back, not anymore, but with nothing better to do, he did as he was told.

"Against my better judgment," Magnus went on, "I'm going to remove your claw."

_'Your_ claw' and not _'the_ claw,' as if the thing belonged on him. Hell, it may as well have; especially in the eyes of the crew – a ragtag collection of 'bots he _really _didn't want to have to deal with right now.

"I don't think I need to tell you," Magnus continued, "that if you make Rodimus regret this, I'll reduce you down to your primary pair of struts."

Maximus said nothing. Ultra Magnus was right, he _hadn't _needed to say it.

"Do I make myself clear?"

"Yeah," Maximus grit out.

Ultra Magnus reached down to undo the cuffs next and as they came open, the relief of regaining complete mobility took him by surprise.

"Stay out of trouble," Magnus said, more a warning than a farewell as he turned around and strode back the way he came – presumably to continue babysitting their rash captain.

Finding himself alone, Maximus turned to the hab suite and was startled when the door unlocked to his signature. Venturing inside, he realised it was the one he'd been assigned when he'd first joined the crew; something that felt like it had happened years ago. As Maximus looked around the empty room, he wasn't all that surprised to find he now had it to himself.

Hot Rod had made a mistake. If their places had been switched, he'd have left both the inhibitor claw and the cuffs _on_. He'd have left himself in the prison too – and he'd have done worse before that.

Dropping heavily onto a slab, Maximus was somewhat relieved to discover it was larger than those down in the brig. Well, that was one good point at least; especially since the two of them were going to get awfully familiar with one another seeing as he had no intention of leaving this room any time soon.

It was probably for the best he wouldn't have to deal with company.

.

* * *

.

In the end Maximus hadn't been able to keep to his self-imposed exile and by the beginning of the second week he was tentatively making his way down to a refuelling station. He hadn't had a choice in the matter and should have seen that coming. After all, energon wasn't catered to their rooms and he wasn't chasing a slow, painful deactivation either. If he'd had a pistol, maybe he would've had an alternative, but seeing as he didn't, his hands were tied and he was forced to get his fuel at a canteen just like the rest of the crew. Well, except for Hot Rod, maybe. Maximus was willing to bet the kid had his energon delivered – probably by Drift – and willingly too.

No one assigned Maximus any duties and his existence within the _Lost Light _was a quiet, hollow one. He learned he hadn't missed much during his stay in the brig, only the loss of the security director's mind and Maximus had already seen enough of _that_. Still, this was a ship and as such gossip was passed around quicker than a bad case of rust among the K-class the night before a drop.

Apparently things hadn't been well with the crew following... the hostage situation. People said that shortly thereafter Red Alert had started slipping, that he was seeing things now because simply hearing them hadn't enough. His very vocal descent into madness was a popular topic of conversation. More than one crew member had been startled by the director's sudden appearance and frantic accusations of seeing 'bots that simply couldn't have been where he'd reported them. It was both the raving and Red Alert's increasingly public demands to see Rung that caused the crew at large to notice the officer who'd once avoided most complex social interactions. Popular opinion was that it was right to keep the two separated. Someone in Red Alert's mental state shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the still recovering doctor; it simply wouldn't have done either of them any good, and in Red's case, probably would've just compounded his issues. The only thing left to do, people agreed, was to give the director time and hope he sorted himself out and stopped being such a nuisance.

Unfortunately time hadn't seen Red Alert ameliorate and instead he'd only gotten worse, going so far as to have some sort of fit near the munitions store, screaming that he was seeing spectres of people who should have been dead. Consensus said that it was for the best, really, that he'd been put away, that it was for his own safety. Who knew what he might've done next while left alone? Others agreed, he might have hurt himself, they said. He especially needed to be kept far from Rung.

The latter 'bot was a popular topic too, but strangely, though he'd been prepared for it, Maximus never heard mention of his own name. It was as if the entire event was a dirty thing, not to be spoken of, or if they did, they certainly didn't do it anywhere he could hear. They _did _stare though, those few times he found himself in a corridor with someone else. They never spoke to him, but Maximus could feel the resentment of their glares curdling the paint on the back of his neck. As it turned out, for all his apparent uselessness, Rung was obviously well liked.

Maximus continued to keep to himself after that, staying in his room though it wasn't completely necessary. People avoided him for the most part and he couldn't say he blamed them; he didn't really want to have much to do with them either.

_Once, _there had been a knock on his door late into the night cycle – later than most would consider appropriate visiting hours, let alone for visiting _him_. And though he hadn't been recharging exactly, he hadn't bothered to get up . The knocking had come again, softly, from what were probably a pair of lightly-built hands. Feeling somewhat uneasy, Maximus had left his would-be guest to their own devices and told himself he wasn't interested. Eventually, whoever it was had grown tired and been carried away by the sound of retreating footsteps. Max had vented a breath he didn't know he was holding and gone straight into sleep mode after that.

.

* * *

.

By the third day into that second week he'd had a simple, straightforward routine. Once he'd grown tired of staring at the ceiling from his recharge slab he'd move over to the other one and see if his perspective changed. It didn't, but it was still better than sitting in front of the dead console while waiting for the lull period in that day's active shifts.

Boredom had driven him to log onto the machine a single time. As soon as the screen had booted up he'd seen a small status bar indicating him as an online presence within the network. There was another window that defaulted to the side of the screen, this one with an aggregated list of all the others online at the same time. As soon as everything had finishing loading and his name had dropped into that running channel, all conversation had ground to a halt. Not even a second later and he was alerted that he'd received a message shunted to a private folder. Fortress Maximus had shut down the console before he'd even seen who had sent it.

He didn't want to know.

He had nothing to talk about.

.

* * *

.

The day after that saw a break in his routine and he wasn't sure what prompted the deviation from his schedule. He'd been on his way to refuel, mind as carefully blank as he could wrestle it when he'd found himself loitering outside Swerve's bar. He must have turned at the wrong corridor, but for some reason he found himself lingering.

The door was open, someone was playing music, someone else was having a heated but good-natured argument, and superimposed over it all, people were laughing. Light – multicoloured from shining through the various refined engex columns lining the wall – lit the room in different hues and pooled along the floor reaching out into the hallway. It was the vibrancy that shocked him most, bright and glowing warm. Everything had seemed so grey lately, as if he'd had faulty filters installed over his optics. But maybe it was just the ship with all its bland grey hallways and the bland grey of his undecorated, empty suite. There was something to all this colour though, and Maximus found his eyes drawn to a mottled patch of orange-pink-yellow light near his foot. It was like watching a bit of reflection through pieces of painted glass. The association floated up through his processor and unable to place where that memory had come from, he shrugged it aside.

Magnus's threat of deactivation hadn't been subtle, and the consequences of screwing up were clear, but Maximus didn't think he was doing anything wrong by being here. If they hadn't wanted him near the rest of the crew, they shouldn't have given him leave to wander the ship. There wasn't anything inherently dangerous about coming back here and besides, he was just so tired of all this _damn grey _everywhere.

No one came in or left the bar while he stood there, allowing him to watch the crowd for a moment longer before he finally made up his mind. The patrons seemed much the same as the last (and _only_) time he'd been here. Pipes was sitting with the same company at the same table Maximus noted, and he'd been repaired. Nothing suggested he'd been shot with a preposterously large handcannon not long ago. Judging by the way his shoulders were shaking, he was even laughing.

Maximus stepped forward. The minute he crossed the threshold, the atmosphere went still – like that quiet, sharp precipice before the first shot on a battlefield – silence rippling outward 'bot by 'bot. Swerve froze mid-word behind his counter, the grin he'd been wearing falling off his face like a dead thing. With hands he didn't seem to notice were shaking, he carefully put down the tray he'd been carrying. The little white one – Tailgate – turned away from where he'd obviously been pestering Cyclonus, paused, and then took a tentative step in Maximus's direction. Chromedome stopped him with a hand on an ancient shoulder as he stood up from his table, silent and glaring from behind his visor while both Tailgate and Rewind peeked their heads out from around either side of the tall body. Skids was standing now too and he mirrored Chromedome, placing himself between Maximus and a completely rigid Pipes who could only stare as his drink slowly dripped down his knee from where he'd spilt it. A few others had risen as well – the larger ones – some Maximus didn't know, but he did recognize the faces of Sunstreaker and Cosmo. The rest were statues, rooted where they sat.

It wasn't until there was a crash from the bar that the crowd finally moved, parting to reveal Whirl, casually leaning his back against the bar counter, legs stretched out loosely in front of him, an empty seat on either side. "Oops," he half sang, voice completely insincere as he let broken glass fall to the ground from between his claws. Then with an almost shocking joviality, locked his optic with Maximus's and said loudly, "Maxy! Who you been hiding from? Haven't seen you since that little fiasco in Rung's office. Why don't you take a load off, sit down." Whirl's legs splayed open a little wider as he gestured to one of the empty bar stools beside him. "You look like you could use a _friend_."

There was a biting inflection in the way he said that last word that made Maximus feel like he'd missed something important, and the way the light refracted off that one unblinking eye was both sick and jagged. But then again this _was _Whirl_, _and by now, the two of them had a history.

"You know what," Maximus heard himself say, "I think I'll pass." Then turning around stiffly, he walked back out the way he'd come in, Whirl's voice the only thing that followed after him.

"_Don't be a stranger; you barely stayed last time!_"


	4. All

Fortress Maximus hadn't been sleeping well since... well, since he'd first woken up at Delphi. And depending on how much a coma counted as legitimate rest – _an experience Maximus certainly hadn__'__t found all that restful _– he honestly hadn't had a full recharge since three years prior to ... to the end of his _tenure_ at Garrus 9.

Still, that didn't stop him from trying. He'd have thought that with all his new-found free time, he'd at least have figured out how to get a bloody uninterrupted recharge by now. Except every time he tried, every time he felt himself slipping closer to that desired state of maximum efficiency defragmentation, he'd be jolted completely online by the memory of unwanted hands on him. It would take hours after that just to force his systems back under control enough to try and start the entire maddening process all over again.

Lying on his back in the dark with his eyes resolutely offline, Maximus tried to remember how to power down. Instead, he couldn't seem to disassociate from the sensors telling him his back treads were being compressed under his weight, his optics telling him that they were off when they should have been lit, plating gauges measuring the ambient temperature as it varied by a quarter of a Celsius, and his proximity sensors, which couldn't be coaxed down from where they'd dialed themselves to their maximum setting – just waiting for something to infringe on personal space. The anticipation was worse with his eyes off, and even more infuriating since he _knew_ he was alone but couldn't seem to convince his body that there'd be no company.

Balling one hand into a fist until his own joints started to creak under the strain, Maximus held that pressure firm for a moment longer before slowly unclenching his hand. Taking a steadying breath, he counted the seconds as they ticked by on the lower right of his chronometer. An hour later and Maximus was still counting.

_This wasn't working._

Dragging himself into a sitting position, mind literally sore from the lack of downtime, Fortress Maximus hauled his weary body over to the other slab. _Time to try for that other perspective._

Sluggish, lead-heavy thoughts were interrupted by a hailing chime from the room's console. The echo of phantom screams receded, and booting up his optics from where they'd fallen to half light, Fortress Maximus realised he was resting his head against the wall. Tired, unhappy, and sore, Maximus reached back, stretching stiff joints to answer the call.

"Am I disturbing anything?" Rung's reedy voice asked, sweeping aside the room's silence.

Maximus froze, slowly turning his head to look back at the guilty hand that had betrayed his privacy. He didn't know what he'd been thinking, but he hadn't meant to pick up, and now the pipsqueak knew he was here.

More than anything, Maximus wanted to reply that _'yes, he was in fact busy, thanks all the same,_' even though he'd been doing nothing more useful than rusting in place. Except he couldn't do it. He'd been dreading this call, and now that it had finally come, he didn't have it in him to tell the psychotherapist to shove off and restart the waiting game – because he had no illusions that Rung wouldn't call again. If Maximus knew anything of the little Autobot, it was that he was both stubborn and quietly unrelenting.

"Fortress Maximus?" Rung's disembodied voice asked again.

"Kind of late, isn't it?"

Rung ignored the question, but to be fair, everyone knew Rung kept to himself and kept even odder hours. Not one person could ever remember having seen him at the bar or having met up at any of the ship's many refuelling stations.

"Are you busy?" the doctor asked, his voice nothing but his characteristic patience.

Maximus answered with a grunt. "Wasn't doing much," he said, and it was true.

"Then if you don't mind, I'd like to speak with you." There was a pause before Rung clarified, "In person."

The other shoe dropped but Maximus had been waiting for it; besides, guilt wouldn't let him tell Rung off. If anything, he owed the doctor this much. Actually, he owed him so much more, but... _but this was a place to start._

"Figured you'd say something like that." The closest to an affirmative Maximus could manage.

"You know where my office is." He flinched at that. "I'll be waiting."

The connection cut and Maximus could only sit there on his second slab listening to the silence that rushed in to fill the void Rung's voice had left behind. For a long time after, there was only quiet, and the sound of his own fans. Eventually he'd have to get up.

And when he did, he made his way to the door.


	5. Fall

He was finally seeing Rung. It had been nearly two months now since his last _visit_, and he was finally going to see the shrink.

Fortress Maximus hesitated at the closed office door. The last time he'd been here things hadn't gone well. Adding to that, Ultra Magnus was obviously against the two of them meeting. Hell, the entire _ship_ was opposed to the idea and Maximus really didn't need nor want any more trouble either. But... but none of that changed the fact that Rung had asked for him.

Maximus's hand hovered in the air awkwardly, poised halfway between knocking and ringing the chime.

People weren't going to like this. They'd talk – _not that he cared_ – but they'd talk, and more than a few felt protective towards the tiny, pathetically weak and under-armed doctor. Then there was Hot Rod and Whirl to think about...

Maximus reminded himself again that he was only here because Rung had asked. If this was what the doctor wanted – _no matter what he had to say_ – if this was the first step towards making amends, _then so be it. _Everyone else could go and get themselves melted down.

Drawing his hand back to finally knock properly, the door slid open before his knuckles could even touch the metal. Directly across the room, Rung looked up from where he'd been idly running his fingers over a model ship.

Maximus stared, watching the doctor harmlessly watching him back. Eventually Rung cleared his throat, smiled, and said, "Come in."

Suddenly aware of himself, Maximus was embarrassed by how long he'd been standing there, thrown off by something as simple as a door opening before he was ready. But since there was no point in dragging it out, he squared his shoulders and walked in.

Rung rose, crossing around his desk to meet him. "I'm glad you came," he said with another smile, sounding genuine. "Why don't you have a seat so we can get started?"

Not even noticing that he'd backed his legs into the patient slab kept in the room until he felt the collision against his calves, Maximus instinctively sat down. Seated, Rung had looked the way he always had; Ratchet's reconstruction proving to be nothing short of as legendary as praised. The psychotherapist had been fully rebuilt right down to his ridiculous eyebrows.

Standing, however, revealed that the repairs hadn't put him back completely the same after all.

There was just one small change: the clear reinforced window over Rung's spark was now protected by a stronger opaque metal casing. Maximus wasn't sure why this surprised him. _Of course Rung would have seen some changes._ The damage had been extensive. Still, it was startling how much less vulnerable that simple modification made the doctor look – even though nothing had _really_ changed and Maximus could have still broken him in half with one hand. Somehow something as stupid as the loss of such an obvious vulnerability made Maximus all the more reluctant to talk with the therapist. Without that familiar glow spilling out his chest, Rung's eyes seemed overbright, as if his spark light was trying to find another outlet to escape his small body.

"So," Maximus said, deliberately setting his hands loose and open on his knees, "how do you want to do this?"

Rung perched himself on the edge of a chair beside the slab. "Why don't we just talk for a bit first? About how you're doing," Rung suggested, resting one hand over the hull of the tiny ship now sitting in his lap. "Have you been integrating back in with the rest of the crew?"

"That hasn't really been a priority," Maximus answered, trying not to sound mulish.

"Do you _want_ to rejoin them?"

Fortress Maximus couldn't have cared less, but he was so tired of being tired, so tired of shying away from a certain paint scheme or a certain optic colour – or at the worst, his _own_ reflection in a window when caught in the periphery of his vision.

"Think that would help? Can't say the crew's in all that much of a hurry to forgive me." The words were difficult to say, but he tried.

"You shouldn't close yourself off from people, Maximus. It might help, too, after what happened to Pipes, and Dogfight, and the rest. I don't want to rush you, and you should certainly go at your own pace, but it's important that you do interact with the others. Have you talked to anyone recently, or heard anything that's unsettled you?"

Maximus thought briefly of Whirl and his accusatory glare, and then back further to Red Alert and the rumour that something had been lost from the medibay.

"Nothing that really jumps out at me."

"Why don't we talk about how you've been doing in a more immediate scope," Rung said, and while it might have been phrased like a question, Maximus knew better. "Forget the crew. Have you been refuelling and resting adequately?"

"Yeah," Maximus said, the truth drying up in his mouth. Frustrated, he added, "If you don't mind, I'd rather we just skip the small talk and get to the point. Go ahead and ask me your questions about the Garrus. I'm ready; I'll answer them this time."

Rung smiled placidly. "You don't like to talk," he said, sounding somewhat apologetic. "It was my mistake for pushing you before. I understand that now."

Maximus wanted to interrupt, to say Rung was more than forgiven. It might not have been true, but Rung wasn't at fault here, not really. _Not entirely._ Instead, he kept quiet.

"I think we should try something else today."

"Tonight," Maximus blurted, not just to be contrary, and not just to fill the air with some sort of noise because he didn't like the way the silence around the doctor was both expectant and hungry. It was the kind of silence that wanted to take your thoughts and shape them into ugly things. But no, that wasn't why he'd spoken up. He'd honestly felt it necessary to point out that it really was a bit unusual – now that he'd checked the time – to meet this late, no matter how strange the schedule Rung kept for himself.

"We're in space," Rung pointed out patiently. "Day and night are artificial constructs now."

Maximus didn't mention that they didn't call it a 'night shift' for nothing. He could already see the end of that argument and it didn't finish with him winning. "Sure," he said instead. "What did you have in mind?" He tried not to sound suspicious. He trusted Rung; he really did. He... _he knew better now._

"Alright," Rung said, giving his ship a last touch before placing it back down in his lap so the screens at his back could unfold and curl around to the front of his body. "I've got a list here, and I'd like you to listen as I read it out. There's no other demands of you, Max; you only need to listen. Just stop me whenever you hear something that needs to be corrected. Can you do that for me?"

Maximus nodded, surprised but relieved right down to his spark that Rung wasn't going to bring up what had happened the last time they'd seen each other. It wasn't that he didn't think about it. He _did_. Constantly. But he was relieved Rung was enough of a professional not to dwell, or to force the issue, because that was one more thing he wasn't sure he was ready to talk about. Boxed in by the four walls of the familiar office, it was hard to ignore the memories splattered and soaked right into the very metal of the room. The smell of burnt circuitry and energon began to come back to him, and Fortress Maximus forced his engine to turn over, trying to focus on the very alive, very whole Rung beside him.

Listening would be easier; he could do that. It was better than being asked questions.

The compromise of Rung sparing him that yawning silence of a question waiting to be answeredwasn't something to be taken for granted, and Maximus felt a shock of affectionate appreciation for the tiny doctor. Rung was right; he understood things now.

_They could do this._

"What're you going to read, then?" Maximus asked, more at ease than he'd been since he first stepped into the room.

Rung didn't answer immediately, too busy calling something up on a couple of his screens. When he'd finished, he turned, fixed Maximus with one of his kind, open smiles and said earnestly, "I'm glad you're cooperating."

.

.

* * *

**Notes:**

What would I do for a Crit?  
More like what _wouldn't_ I do.

Comments are always good too~.


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